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Early life trauma exposure and stress sensitivity in young children
Damion J Grasso1, Julian D Ford, Margaret J Briggs-Gowan
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut School of Medicine, Farmington, CT 06030, USA. mbriggsgowan@uchc.edu
Objective:
The current study replicates and extends work with adults that highlights the relationship between trauma exposure and distress in response to subsequent, nontraumatic life stressors.
Methods:
The sample included 213 2-4-year-old children in which 64.3% had a history of potential trauma exposure. Children were categorized into 4 groups based on trauma history and current life stress.
Results:
In a multivariate analysis of variance, trauma-exposed children with current life stressors had elevated internalizing and externalizing problems compared with trauma-exposed children without current stress and nontrauma-exposed children with and without current stressors. The trauma-exposed groups with or without current stressors did not differ on posttraumatic stress disorder symptom severity. Accounting for number of traumatic events did not change these results.
Conclusions:
These findings suggest that early life trauma exposure may sensitize young children and place them at risk for internalizing or externalizing problems when exposed to subsequent, nontraumatic life stressors.
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